


I See You

by stardustsroses



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: F/M, also a lot of angst, beware of a lot of kissing!, beware of cute jurdan swimming in the forest!, beware of jurdan!cuddles, jurdan fluff is always some good shit, or else it wouldnt be a stardustsroses fanfic amirite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-03 01:20:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15808419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustsroses/pseuds/stardustsroses
Summary: “Why do all those things, Cardan? Was it just to feel powerful for two seconds?”He hesitates. Sneers, the way he always does whenever there is a lie coating his tongue and he realizes he cannot spit it out. And then, “I wanted them to see me. Because no one does.”“I do. I see you.”





	I See You

The first touch of his lips on mine threatens to crumble me. I thought I was built like a mountain, after all those years training myself to be solid, rough and covered in sharp cutting edges. But I realize I am nothing but a rose’s petal in his arms.

The second touch of his lips is on my cheek, and I feel him breathe against me. He’s warm, like he always is. I hate remembering him like this. I want to think of Cardan as shards of ice and not as a wool blanket that comforts me when it’s cold and lonely.

The third touch of his lips has me clinging to him, and he doesn’t stop me when my fingers grasp the fur of his coat, pulling him closer to me. He has me against the wall. Those hands at my throat could easily choke the life out of me, I remind myself. His touch cannot be this gentle, I think. I might be dreaming, I wonder. Maybe I am dreaming this.

I wish. I wish I was.

But his hipbones pressing into mine release a too-real sound from my lips, and reality falls down on me like a bucket of ice water. Tell him no, I urge myself, panicked at my lack of panic. Tell him yes.

My mind turns to smoke and my body to dust when he presses another kiss to my lips. Then pulls away. His eyes are opened to greet mine. I draw a shaking breath as he comes closer again, his eyes glazed over, unblinking, as if his mind is elsewhere, too. I hear strings from far away, faint music flooding out of opened doors and balconies to greet the clear dark skies. The stone wall reverberates with the slow pounding of drums. As enchanting as Faerie music is, I don’t think I have ever heard something more beautiful than Cardan’s breathing catch in his throat.

I think he’s going to pull away abruptly, but then it’s me who’s struggling to breathe when Cardan lets his lips drag over mine. Not a kiss. A soft brush of his mouth against mine from one side to another. And it’s so slow, so tentative, that it leaves me trembling. He’s memorizing the shape of my lips with his own.

I will fall into this abyss and drown into these unsteady waters, I realize. I will not care when the darkness of his eyes swallows me down, I realize.

He’s so close that when he speaks, his lips touch mine. “Do you know, Jude,” he mutters, a rasp in the back of his throat, “that this is all I want to do, all the time? Just hold you, let myself taste you over and over until I quench this need?”

Conflicting words for conflicted feelings. I see the fight in him – the way his hands grip my sides a little tighter. The urge to let me go. The desire to pull me closer. And I want to despise him for it. For hating to want me. But I cannot – I feel exactly the same about him.

“Get off me.”

My voice is a whisper I barely hear, a rough string of words that sound weak and dazed to my ears. Cardan has me off the floor, hips pinning me to the wall. I can’t breathe. I can’t think.

With a grunt and something close to hurt flashing in his eyes, he lets go of me. I stumble into his chest, and use my hands to steady myself. I urge my knees to stay firm, to keep that wobbliness very far from his attention. But nothing seems to escape him, for Cardan’s eyes drift downward to where my hands rest, and that hideous smirk is back on his face. I know that anger that lingers in his eyes is really just shame. Shame for what he admitted to me, and shame for knowing my pride will not allow me to say it back to him.

“This has to end,” I say, pulling back from him, though I don’t get very far. His hands press against the wall on either side of my head, forming a cage I don’t wish to escape from.

“Do you mean it this time, Jude, dear?”

I hate his mocking tone. I hate his face right now. “You came after me, remember? You were the one-“

“But you kissed me first.”

“You touched me first.”

He snorts. “Of course I did – I’m very much drunk if you haven’t noticed-“

It’s not a lie but – I am not in the mood. “Stop,” I tell him, slamming my hands against his chest, suddenly furious, suddenly about to burst into tears. “Don’t you start with that. Don’t you make up excuses for what you want, Cardan.”

“But isn’t that what you do, Jude, dear? Isn’t that what you’re doing right now?”

“Don’t call me that-“

“I will tell you a truth if you tell me one, too,” he interrupts, leaning his face down close to mine as if he’s challenging me to strike. His tone is the rasp of dry leaves rubbing against each other. It’s dead and heavy. Cutting. I hate it, too.

His face dares me. His eyes tempt me.

How we always manage to end up here, I’m not sure. But we always come full circle, ending where we started off: provoking words and mocking insults, masks that hide the hurt inside, cutting remarks to stop those feelings from showing. As I stare at him now, breathing hard against me, his coal eyes burning with rage and something else entirely, I wonder whether this is all I will ever have with him. It’s a shame – a shame wanting more, so much more. It goes against everything I have ever taught myself to be. And yet I’m way past caring. I’m way past trying to deny that I want less than all of him.

I just wish he was, too.

“You cannot,” he smiles. It’s a cruel one, meant to hurt. “When have you ever told me a truth?”

And maybe there’s a place in that dark heart of his that wants me to want him. I’m inclined to believe that that is what this is all about – this anger in him. He wants me to let go of the shame, and yet he cannot let go of his.

My eyes follow his, never turning away. “Which angers you more, Cardan?” I ask in return, crossing my arms over my chest. A weak wall, meant to distance myself from him, from his body which, despite his words, keeps nearing mine. Like it’s instinctive now. “The fact that you cannot admit to yourself that you’re weak for not being able to fight this?” I gesture between us. “Or the fact that I will not give in to you?”

“What angers me, Jude,” he says, so close I feel his breath kissing my lips. I want to close my eyes and breathe him in, wrap my hands around his neck and pull him close. His hand on the side of my head slams on the wall, as if he’s containing himself from touching me. “What angers me is that you are able to lie and deceive as easily as you can breathe. What angers me is that I want you more than anything else in this world and yet I cannot deny it. But you – you do want me.”

He touches my chin and I have no strength to pull away. Maybe months ago I would have. Before everything, before every kiss he gave me and every mischievous grin under the sheets, before every playful word – maybe I would have been strong enough to slap that hand away and untangle myself from him.

I call him weak and yet I’m far from being anything else but.

“You do want me,” he repeats. “Your eyes say it. Your kiss says it. Your body says it. And yet – why can’t your mouth say it to me?”

He suddenly sounds like it belongs to someone else. That annoyance in his tone is still very much present, but there’s a tinge of desperation that’s new. And I know that I should not let myself be surprised by it. Have I not been unravelling this Cardan, the one begging me to want him, that’s standing in front of me right now? Have I not taken that mask off countless nights before? Have I not stripped him down to the bone and seen through the cruelty planted in him by his family, his brother, and seen the lost boy who only craved love?

Maybe the moon brought that mask back for him. For me. Maybe when the sun went down and our bodies were no longer entwined…

Maybe we could not allow ourselves to be real when reality finally set on us.

I find myself hating this reality. It shows me what he is to me and what I am to him. It shows me the difference of our worlds, it shows me how much I have to lose. It shows me impossibilities.

“Go back to your ball,” I tell him, my eyes tracing the black feathers in his collar as an attempt to avoid everything his own eyes want to tell me.

As an attempt to avoid the dull curtain that falls over them.

Mask on. “I am weak, you say?” He shoots at me, backing away. Poison in those words, in the laugh he gives me before turning away and walking through the double doors.

I watch the black cape disappear with a cruel swish.

And as much as I want to comprehend what has changed and why is has changed…I cannot allow myself to dwell on it. Despite everything, I was right. It has to end, eventually.

The how is the hard part to figure out. But for my sake – and his – I have to try. Or Cardan and I will end up destroying each other, and this time I don’t believe we will be able to walk away intact.

***

He has an impressive self-control, I will admit that. Cardan has not sought me out once. He has successfully avoided me for two weeks straight.

He was right before, of course. I am the weakest of us both, for I find myself looking for him whenever I walk along the balconies, watching the stars glimmer in the distance, the moon big and close. Despite convincing myself that it could not be, would not be, still I find myself hoping to bump into him in the gardens. I find myself missing the times when we could simply hate each other for no good reason, and bicker until our cheeks were purple and our throats sore from screaming at each other. I find myself wanting to just-

To just see him.

And for what?

Weak weak weak.

My sword strikes the head of the dummy and I watch it fall and roll to the floor. I wipe the sweat from my brow, feeling the anger flow and crash over me, in my blood, like waves. I use it to feed me, to motivate me to lock the thoughts and memories flashing behind my eyes in the dark cells of my mind. But in the end, it serves me no use.

Gentle sunlight warms my face, slipping in from the tall glass windows of the training room. Sleep calls me, but daytime means that the room is completely empty, and I will not have to deal with strange looks from the others. The comments. The whispers. I try, I try so hard not to let them get to me, but then I hear some low noble comment how the High King has paid no attention to any of his courtiers lately. How he has preference for human low lives. Once I heard a young girl saying to her friend that I was a witch, and I had clearly enchanted the High King, for he would not look at me otherwise.

I scoff to myself. Ridiculous. How the rumours had turned to us, I did not know. Maybe screaming at each other in the throne room and then disappearing for unspecific amounts of the time did it for them.

But as ridiculous as they were…I couldn’t deny the truth of some. Cardan had stopped paying any attention – if he ever did have any – to the people in his court and, as far as I knew, he had not visited the quarters of any pretty noble.

Maybe I wish he had. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so difficult then.

I rest my sword in the weapon display. I shake my head at myself, knowing perfectly well how much of a dirty lie that is. I would have minded. I would have hated him for it. I knew it. As unfair as it was.

What even am I to him? What are we?

Nothing.

“I wouldn’t want to be that dummy.”

I turn, heart racing, to find The Ghost watching me from the doorway, hazel eyes squinting at the now bright morning sun. I gain back my composure, whatever is left of it, and leave my sword in its spot.

“Just letting off some steam,” I tell him, shaking the thoughts from my head.

“You have a lot by the looks of it,” he raises an eyebrow, watching the damage I’ve done.

I know he’s not here to chit-chat. Not when he should be asleep like the rest of Faerie, not by the way he stands or looks at me.

“What is it?” I ask him as I walk to him, massaging my wrists.

The Ghost turns his eyes to me. Faeries never look tired, though Ghost sighs as if he is. “He’s calling for you.”

I stop. “Why.”

“To speak about trade routes,” Ghost replies, crossing his arms. I almost laugh – trade routes. Cardan is not very creative.

“At this hour?” I say drily.

Ghost shrugs. “You know how the High King is.”

I do. Unpredictable. Messy. Incomprehensible. Idiotic.

“Did he say anything else?” I ask him as we walk together out of the training room. The halls are bright with colours, the gems decorating each doorway shining with the new morning light. I try to make my tone as casual as I can.

“No – just to bring you to him.”

“I thought you were the High King’s spy,” I mutter to him. “When did you become his messenger?”

The Ghost laughs lowly. He says, “Months ago you were his spy too.”

He doesn’t dare to say the rest, and for that I’m glad. I believe the memory of the dummy’s head falling easily off its body is now forever imprinted on his brain, and Ghost doesn’t want to push me.

“Someone has to keep that crown in his head,” I say, untying my hair from the badly-done ponytail I had previously while training. I feel Ghost watching me intently, the way I’ve seen him look at other people. Listening in close to their words, watching their movements, so as to unravel their secrets. “As bad of a king as he is, if he’s out of the throne, we’re in danger.”

My brother is in danger.

“How scheming of you.”

I don’t answer, letting The Ghost lead me to Cardan. Though I have a feeling I know exactly where he is.

I pause with a hand on the doors that lead to the throne room. I imagine him now sitting on that throne with the pout of a child, probably thinking of some good remarks to throw at me. Probably hating himself for breaking his self-control.

I hate the twinge of brief satisfaction that squeezes my heart.

“Hey,” Ghost says from behind me. When I turn, I see his jaw is tense. “I know it’s none of my business, but if it brings you any comfort – he can’t stop asking about you. Where you were.” And then a grin that’s so unlike Ghost I almost gape at him. “Who you were with.”

I scoff. “It doesn’t,” I tell him. I mumble to myself, “Territorial bastard.”

My fingers wrap around the handle hard enough to break.

“Be careful,” Ghost simply warns before walking away, as silently as a butterfly taking flight.

I turn and stare after him. It’s not like me and Ghost are close friends; I don’t even know if we can call our relationship that, since he’s never even told me his real name. So why would he warn me about Cardan? And yet the well-intentioned worry in his gaze was real. Perhaps I need to start paying more attention to the people who actually deserve it. Perhaps I need to get my priorities straight.

I barge through the doors, letting them fall shut with a heavy thud behind me.

I expect him to be alone and he is. Lounging in his throne, long legs spread in front of him as if he’s bathing in the sunlight. His eyes are closed, and I almost mistake him for being asleep before I see the corner of his mouth lift – a reaction to my dramatic entrance, I am sure. But before I notice anything else about him, my eyes divert to his hair – the black curls are tinged with gold and dark brown tones that surface in the yellow light coating the throne room, and it kisses his skin, softening the paleness. I realize that I’ve rarely seen Cardan in the sun. All I can remember are the fleeting moments, those saved in the dark corners of my mind, the ones that show him turning in the sheets, away from the windows, away from the first light, and closing his eyes as if he wants the sun to burn down to ashes. Moments when I’m so tired and my eyelids are dropping quickly, urging me to fall asleep, though not before I catch a glimpse of him opening his eyes to stare at me. I remember thinking how unfair it was – the fact that he looked even more beautiful in the sun than he did in the moonlight.

And just like that, I have to snap myself back to reality, and focus on something else before my thoughts take me back to places I can no longer visit. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I try to place my attention somewhere else.

His blouse is absolutely ridiculous.

“Jude,” he coos, eyes closed, smiling like a cat having a nap in the sun.

My name feels like a punch in my chest.

I stand there in front of him, arms crossed over my chest like a stubborn child. I tell him, “Why have you been asking around where I have been? And with whom?”

Cardan looks at me. I wish he hadn’t. His eyes catch the light and my heart feels like it’s beating in my throat. I feel my blood run hot.

He flicks the paper in his hands. A map I haven’t noticed before. He looks down at it, and simply says, “Have you been to the hot springs, Jude?”

“Are you listening to me?” I stomp my foot, and instantly curse myself for it. I really am acting like a child. “Why would I know-“

“I want to take you there.”

“You want-!?”

“Now,” he completes.

He lifts himself off the throne with a graciousness I could never muster, flinging the map over his shoulder. Cardan walks to the double doors without looking back, as if he expects me to follow him.

“Excuse you,” I growl. “I want an apology.”

Cardan turns to look at me like the past two weeks haven’t happened. He raises his eyebrows. Says, “An apology for what?”

Sometimes I forget that no matter how human his actions might seem at times, Cardan is anything but. Sometimes the memories of his lips against my ear, of his smile, and of his teasing laughter echoing in my room, get the better of me and I end up forgetting what he is. Prideful, territorial fae.

“You can’t just ask Ghost to spy on me,” I tell him. “It’s none of your business what I do and with whom I do it. Understand?”

Cardan looks amused.

My feet lead me to him and his eyes follow every step with a predator’s intent. He’s no longer threatened by me, I notice. No longer afraid. Maybe I need to get me some new, sparkling knives to throw at him.

“I am not yours. You don’t get to control me, and you certainly don’t get to know what my days look like when you’re not there. Also, I want to know what Ghost has told you and I want you to explain why you want to know in the first place.”

“Are you done?” He smirks.

“No – I might still slap you in that face of yours.”

“You could never do it. Maybe a knife would do the job for you, Jude, dear-“

“Don’t call me that.”

“-but you could never strike me, you know it. It would end up being a caress and an invitation to your bed.”

Bastard. Bastard.

He’s right.

I bark out a laugh. “Do you miss me that much, Cardan?” I sound hysterical. “Do you actually miss me enough to become delusional?”

He shrugs, eyes unreadable, and holds out a hand. “Probably.”

I stare at him in confusion. I can’t smell the alcohol in him, but with Cardan you never know. “What’s your deal?” I ask him.

He sighs like a bored child. “It’s been two weeks of this game, Jude. I’m tired of playing. I could shatter my pride for a day. Maybe you could too.”

I don’t know what he’s asking me. I don’t know if I want to know.

“I told you-“

“I know what you told me,” he says, impatient now. “I know. I know I’m in no position to demand anything, but-“

But I miss you.

But I need you.

But you’ve shattered through every wall I put up and now I don’t know how to raise it again in front of you. Now I don’t know if I want to.

And for all his pride, here he is. Cardan asking me to let go again. Cardan’s eyes begging me to ignore that part of us that frowns at these feelings. Because the sun is out and his world is asleep and the impossibilities cannot crawl out when it’s just him and I.

I want to take his hand so much.

I want to place my heart in his palm, just to see what he’ll do with it. Maybe crush it, is my first guess. But maybe, just maybe, he’ll wrap it up and save it.

Could I do the same with his?

Is that what he’s asking of me right now?

I’m all too aware of Ghost’s words echoing in the back of my mind like warning bells. And yet I can’t find my voice to deny the Cardan that’s standing in front of me right now. How long until he goes back to being the other one? How long until I go back to being the other Jude, who does not feel, who does not possess the ability to want?

I stare at his hand. “I want an apology,” I demand.

“I’m sorry.”

“I want you to mean it.”

He works his jaw. Says, “I just needed to know, alright?”

“So why couldn’t you have come to me to ask me yourself?”

Cardan makes a face. “Sorry for not wanting to risk the possibility of catching you with a weapon in your hands. I quite value my life.” And then, slowly, a grin forms. I’m taken aback by how beautiful he is. How quickly can I go from wanting to punch him in the mouth to wanting to kiss him? “Why, but you did want me to come to you, didn’t you, Jude?”

I don’t deign him with an answer. Instead I watch him with a sneer on my face.

The High King actually stops smiling for a second. He rubs the back of his neck, like he’s tired. He doesn’t look like he’s fighting with himself anymore. Maybe he’s come to a final decision about where he wants us to stand. And despite the clarity of it, I still want to doubt.

“Look,” he starts, “I know I shouldn’t have. You have no idea how many times I wanted to knock at your door and see for myself if you had found someone to replace me.” He holds out a hand when he sees my mouth open to speak. “Yes, Jude, I know how easy that would be for you,” he says drily, sarcasm rolling off his tongue.

“That wasn’t what I was going to say.”

“Yes, well,” he responds, shrugging again and looking away. “Turns out you’re difficult to forget. And we both know how much I dislike to make an effort for things. I’m done trying to get you out of my mind. Is that the answer you’re looking for?”

My face is warm and the sunlight isn’t to blame.

I open my mouth, close it. And then I can only blurt out, “Yes.”

Cardan looks taken aback for 0.2 seconds, before he composes himself and says, “So now it’s my turn to ask you…” He trails off.

My breath catches in my throat. He’s silent. I’m silent. And then, “So ask.”

He leans against the door. There’s a brief moment, one I barely catch, where I see hesitation – no, not hesitation. Fear. I see fear cross his eyes. And it’s just before he says, voice hoarse, “Can you forget?”

Can I forget all those times he threatened to drop my heart to the floor and squash it with his foot?

Can I forget the person Cardan was months and months ago, before I saw the love-deprived boy holding me between the sheets?

Can I forget?

“Can you?” I ask in return.

“I wouldn’t be standing here now if it was otherwise,” he responds, like it’s obvious.

A pause. I watch him and he watches me, and my logic has gone out of the window. He can’t care less about the fact that he’s practically on his knees in front of me, asking me to be with him. He knows I’ve seen him. I’ve seen what he’s like when the world is silent and there’s no one else to impress or threaten or intimidate. I’ve seen what Cardan looks like deprived of clothes, and deprived of everything else that made him the most detestable person I have ever met. And I was so surprised by what was underneath, so enchanted, that I’d forgotten to close the gates to my mind and my heart.

And he’d gotten in.

He’d seen me.

There’s nothing else to see, to prove.

Be careful.

Too late.

“Maybe,” is my answer.

His smirk widens, a corner of his mouth lifted, his head leaning against the wall. Cardan looks up at the ceiling, closing his eyes, like he’s just listened to the most beautiful of melodies. He looks relieved and, at the same time, incredibly arrogant.

I think he’s going to say something mocking. I prepare a remark in my head. But then he’s looking at me, expression softening, and his hands are grabbing my waist, and pulling me to him, and his arms-

He wraps me up and pulls me close. His scent makes me dizzy. The warmth of him has me leaning against him.

“I will not make it easy for you,” I warn him, allowing my hands to rest on his chest.

His laugh reverberates through me. “I wouldn’t have you any other way, Jude, dear.”

I don’t scowl at him this time – the name sounds good in my ears.

I touch his cheeks, and lean him down for a kiss.

His curls tickle my forehead as Cardan angles his head to deepen our kiss, hands squeezing the small of my back, fingers lazily twirling the laces of my dress.

The water closes around my head and I welcome its warmth.

It has to end. And someday, it will. Today, however, I will drown.

Cardan pulls away to nibble on my bottom lip. He grins as if he’s won the world. Gently, he pulls back, but he’s close enough to share breath with me as he says, “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Not far. We can walk there,” he tells me, hands drawing patters on my sides, coaxing me. His smirk widens. “Scared, Jude?”

Idiotic, considering what I should be afraid of is this vulnerability I’ve showed him. Of the vulnerability he’s shown me. And yet my stomach still turns in expectation.

“Never,” I bite back. And for good measure, I take his lips again.

***

The view is breathtaking.

Water dribbles down the sharp rocks, a waterfall of blinding, clear blue that leads to a decently sized pond. Smoke and mist dance together, sparkling in the sunlight, and in between the tree branches fall and curve around the water, their still blooming flowers and colourful leaves falling onto the steaming water. Birds sing in the quiet and peacefulness surrounding them. It is a world hidden from the rest. I don’t know how Cardan has managed to find it, and I don’t ask.

I feel him watching me with a sense of triumph. I know I’m probably standing here with my mouth opened, looking like a fish out of water. But I have never seen something more beautiful in my life.

I hear the rustling of clothes and turn to see Cardan unbuttoning his stupid blouse.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“It’s freezing outside,” I tell him. “Someone could see you.”

“In the daytime?” He snorts. “Everybody is asleep, Jude. Take off your clothes.”

I pause. Cardan looks at me expectantly. He smirks, “I can do it for you, if you’d like.”

“I’m good, thanks.”

He clicks his tongue. “It’s hot in the water.”

“Yes,” I look at it, then at him. “It looks like its boiling. Human, have you forgotten?” I point at myself. “Less skin layers in comparison to you, all-too-powerful-and-glorious fae.”

Cardan dares to roll his eyes at me, dropping his shirt to the floor. “It’s not going to burn you. I promise.”

“When did I ever trust a word you said?”

He takes me in his arms, and grins like he has my whole trust in him. He does. “You will have to start someday, Jude, dear.”

I look at the water behind me. My eyes meet his, “This is insanity.”

“Which part? Wanting to spend time with you?”

“Well – yes.”

“Asking you to swim naked with me in the middle of nowhere?”

“A definite yes.”

“Wanting nothing else but to kiss that frown off your face?”

“Cardan-“

He does kiss that frown off my face. His lips touch every inch of my face, wherever he can reach, kisses that have only one purpose, and that’s to make me smile. Cardan, in all his success, grins wider while his fingers undo the laces at the back of my dress.

“You are insufferable,” I tell him, but I’m smiling.

In response, he only grins wider. Two dimples. He pulls my dress apart with expert ease, without ever taking his evil, glinting eyes away from mine.

“You, Jude, need to learn how to have fun.”

“Fun.”

“Yes, but you have to be happy for that to happen,” he teases, unclipping the dress in the back of my neck. My back is exposed to the cold. “Are you happy, Jude?”

I shiver. “Yes.”

His eyes meet mine in a meaningful pause. He touches my chin with two fingers. Lifts it. Touches my lips with his and says, “I really am out of my mind.”

“What?” I breathe.

He kisses the tip of my nose, so gently. His voice is a whisper. “What have you done to me?”

“What have you done to me?” I retort.

“Enchanted the hell out of you,” he giggles. “Clearly.”

I snort.

“Grumpy, grumpy Jude,” he says, ever the playful, childish Cardan I have come to know. I don’t want him to go away.

His hands drag over my arms, before settling on my wrists. The only thing keeping my dress on me are my forearms, clutching at it. Cardan doesn’t say anything before tugging gently at my sleeves, watching me. With one tug they come off, and my dress falls to the ground.

The cold bites at my skin, yet I don’t feel it immediately. My cheeks burn at the way he’s gazing at me, eyes dragging up and down my body as if he already has it committed to memory.

He kneels.

His hands drag down my legs, each touch a caress, before touching my shoes. One hand behind my knee supports my leg when he lifts it. One shoe off. Then the other. Cardan touches his forehead to my stomach, and his lips touch the place just beneath my bellybutton.

I grasp at the hair on the back of his neck. My legs are trembling, and it’s not because of spring’s chilly breeze. His hands drag up to my thighs as I angle his head up, his eyes facing me. I tug at his hair – a silence request.

Cardan lifts himself up, kicking at his shoes. I have no idea where they went. My eyes are glued to his. His trousers are gone. With a wink and a smirk, he pecks my lips, and then he’s jumping into the water.

I stare after him, completely stunned at his quickness.

He breaks through the surface, pulling his hair back from his forehead. I watch him with my arms around myself.

Cardan and his smirk swim to the edge of the pond, and he holds out a hand for me. “Go on, Jude.”

His breath comes out as smoke and mist. Knowing perfectly well I would regret this the next day, I take his hand and let him guide me. I almost breathe a sigh of relief when my foot touches the water, the warmth coating my skin and digging into my cold bones.

Cardan gets impatient. He grabs my hips, lifts me, and lowers himself down onto the water with me in his arms. I gasp, closing my eyes. I’m instantly relaxed, in awe at how perfect it feels, despite the cold the outdoors offer us. One hand at my back, another moving along the water, pulling us deeper, Cardan watches me throw my head back and sigh in pleasure, my body turning liquid against him.

He stops, the water stills. When I open my eyes, he’s still watching me. I watch him too, for what it seems like forever and not time at all. There’s nothing of the Cardan I met, years ago. There’s nothing of the cruel boy I thought hated me. He had a lot to make up for, yes. A lot I did not, and would not, forget. But the face staring up at me, the eyes that searched mine, proved that this was a start.

There’s a peacefulness to him here, in this silence. There is no need for words. He’s telling me everything I want to hear, just with the way his eyes cross every feature on my face. The smirk is on. The mask is off.

“Who are you?” I murmur to him, letting my thumb caress his cheek.

He leans into my hand. “I wish I knew.”

“I think I know now.”

“Do you?”

“Hm,” I say, exploring the shape of his bottom lip with the tip of my finger. “Or I’m very close to finding out for sure.”

“Are you now.”

I smile for him. It’s a rarity, too, and I know it strikes in the right way. Cardan turns his face and kisses my palm, letting his lips linger. I lean in, touching my forehead with his.

“Tell me another lie,” he says to me.

I fit in his arms like I’m meant to be here. I know it when he pulls me impossibly close, erasing the little distance that was previously between us.

“I want you,” I tell him. “And it’s not a lie.”

Cardan smiles. “Tell me more.”

“You have very pretty eyelashes.”

He looks up, cocking his head to the side. An amused snort.

“And you don’t deserve eyelashes this long,” I say, raising my hand to trace the underside of his eyes. “You really don’t. It’s a crime.”

“Hm,” he mumbles. “Do you have more lies for me?”

I breathe in. “I can lie to you if that’s what you want.”

“Go on then,” he says, nuzzling my nose with his.

My heart skips a beat at that small gesture. It shatters completely when his dark eyes open to look at me, and they’re glinting with something beautiful – something I’ve only seen in the early hours, when it’s just me and him, and a world asleep, full of possibilities.

Instead of telling him, I lean in, touch my lips to his ear. A gentle kiss. And then I whisper the words, so lowly, just for him to hear. The mist floats around us, hiding us from the rest, hiding my words and my heart and this thing between us that could burn this whole forest and leave the world in dust and ashes.

With my chest pressing into his, I feel his heart racing in his chest when I finish whispering the words into his ear. I watch him pause. Watch his eyes blink once, twice, and then turn to mine.

“You don’t,” he repeats to me.

I lie again, and smile. “No, I don’t.”

His arms hold me tighter. My legs wrap around him, intent on never letting go. “Do you have a lie for me, Cardan?” I ask him.

He parts his lips, watching me. And then he attempts to repeat, “I d-“

His voice breaks, his mouth closes. He can’t physically lie to me. Even if he doesn’t mean it – he can never lie to me. So he can just tell me the truth, without masks. “I love you.”

“Can I give you a truth now?”

“Go on,” he says again, breathless.

One kiss in the center of his lips. One where his dimple should be, on his right cheek. One on his chin, and one on his neck, where I let my mouth linger for longer. But Cardan cups my cheeks, and earns himself a moan from me when his lips touch mine.

I could taste him forever. The bitter sweetness of it all, pushing me down onto the warm water and yet making me feel as though I have wings and could soar if I so desired. I could spend the rest of my days having his body press against mine, his hands leaving trails across my legs, my sides and my arms. His tongue drags along my bottom lip, teasing, playful, and then it’s a teeth-clashing, lip-biting type of kiss that leaves me gasping for air.

He nuzzles his face into the crook my neck, his hand at the back of my neck, pulling the pins off my hair, letting the strands fall onto the water. A dark curtain behind me. His lips touch my skin as he whispers, “Please.”

I don’t respond, too tormented by the way he’s touching me to form coherent thoughts.

“Please,” he says again, pride be damned, against my skin. “Jude, tell me.”

“I love you, too.”

There.

What am I to him?

Everything.

As he is to me.

“I really did enchant you,” he muses, his tone light, but his voice cracks at the end of that last word, and I can sense the restlessness in him.

“Apparently,” I say to him, pulling back gently to look at him. Cardan sits us on one of the flat rocks in the pond, deep enough that the water still raises up to our chests, but large enough to have me sit on his lap, facing him. I will never get over how perfect it feels to be like this with him.

“Apparently?” He scoffs. Smiles, as bright as the sun.

My arms wrap around his shoulders, pulling him close. Because despite his humour, there’s the Cardan I want. There’s the one that asked me for my heart without hoping to receive it.

I pause, staring at him. I tell him, “Can it always be like this? Will it?”

Cardan leans against the rock, chest and neck glinting with water, as he runs his fingers through his hair. “I want it to. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know if we were made to be always like this,” I muse. “But we can try.”

“Yes?”

“Yes,” I nod. “I can let go of my pride. Of everything else. Can you?”

“Dead and gone,” he says, twirling a piece of my hair around his finger, gaze distracted.

“Cardan.”

“Jude?”

I hesitate. “Why do all those things?”

He looks up at me, blinking.

I touch his cheek, sighing. “Was it just because of Balekin?”

“You want to talk about this now?” He grumbles, fingers snaking over my back. “I had some other fun ideas in mind.”

I shake him off, turning his face to mine. I wasn’t going to give up that easily. “Why do all those things, Cardan? Was it just to feel powerful for two seconds?”

He hesitates. Sneers, the way he always does whenever there is a lie coating his tongue and he realizes he cannot spit it out. And then, “I wanted them to see me. Because no one does.”

I start. I didn’t know what kind of answer I expected, but the anger in his eyes burns with something new. Something deeper. Maybe something I would never get to know completely. But I want to try. And so I tell him, with all my sincerity, “I do. I see you.”

Cardan turns his face away from him, seemingly ashamed. So very human feelings for a not so human man.

“You may not like it,” I say to him, holding on to his arms as I drift closer to him again. My fingers drag over his shoulders, running down his chest under the water, just to settle where I know his heart lies. “But I do see you.”

Cardan’s breath hitches as my lips touch the top of his chest. Once, and then twice. A third time, between his collarbone. I see his tail underneath the water, its nervous movements showing the uneasiness in him. There are scars here, and I wanted to unravel them, then kiss them better.

“I want what I see,” I assure him. His jaw is mine to explore, and I do. With gentle presses of my mouth, leading up to his ear. “I am not afraid of what I see, and you shouldn’t be either.”

“I’m-“

A lie he can’t say.

I am afraid.

“I see you as you see me,” I continue, pulling away to face him. “No more pretending. No more.”

“We’re so good at it, though,” he tells me.

“Maybe we’ll find that we’re good at other things,” I shoot back, raising an eyebrow as a challenge.

Cardan shakes his head at me, smirking. “I already know how brilliant I am between your legs, Jude, dear-“

I splash him.

Cardan wipes water off his eyes with a scowl. “I can drown you.”

My tone mocks his, “You could never do it, Cardan, dear. It would end up being a caress and an invitation to your bed.”

“I don’t even know why I love you.”

“I’ve enchanted you,” I tell him, shrugging.

He rolls his eyes. And there’s the smile. “Apparently.”

I smile with him, leaning down to take his lips, but not before I whisper, comically appalled, “Apparently?”

Cardan laughs against me, and it’s him who takes my lips then. I don’t get tired of it. Not as the light changes around us and dawn becomes dusk. I don’t think I ever will. I could get used to this reality. This world of possibilities. I could get used to this. To us.


End file.
